A century ago, gallows humor about the inevitability of an otherwise
avoidable world war permeated the upper ranks of the Kaiser’s Army. The
German General Staff quipped that this gathering crisis, when viewed from
Paris, was dismissed as serious but not yet desperate. In Berlin, however,
conditions were seen as the opposite desperate but not serious.
The Obama administration’s strategic thinking appears trapped in this
historical divide over desperate and serious. Consider several forces that
are moving us to the desperate category.
First, America still relies on an antique and even late-19th century concept
of national security in which, regardless of rhetoric, defense remains the
default position for security. But the broader definition of security and
its consequences must be our lodestar. As the conduct of war for the time
being has transformed from conflicts between more or less similarly armed
and organized military forces to campaigns waged over people and their
loyalties and perceptions, non-military tools and methods are critical to
success.
Similarly, as non-military threats, such as resource dependencies, political
instability and Arab awakenings, along with cyber and terror take center
stage, defense is too narrow an aperture to provide for the common security.
Defense is clearly crucial. However, defense alone can never serve as the
surrogate for the 21st-century security challenges we face.
Second, compounding this excessive focus on defense, the structure for
national security still remains organized on the National Security Act of
1947 a creature of post World War II and the Cold War. Despite pleas for a
¡°whole-of government approach to security and the creation of new
bureaucracies such as the Department of Homeland Security for that purpose,
sadly, the current organizational structure does not meet the needs of the
21st century as we see in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, all
failed or failing governments.
Third, while we spend huge amounts on defense, despite lusty promises,
neither Congress nor the executive branch is serious about reforming
defense’s budgetary, procurement and spending processes.
Adding up the Pentagon, overseas contingency accounts, the Department of
Veterans Affairs and nuclear weapon programs at the Energy Department,
defense spending amounts close to $1 trillion a year, with the military
getting the lion’s share. Roughly half goes for people and some operations;
the other half goes to purchasing goods and services in approximately equal
shares. Goods are stuff from F-35 fighter jets to 7.62mm bullets. Services
account for the privatization of many jobs in the department, from staff
positions to civilian gate guards. Reform almost exclusively centers on the
weapon acquisition process and big-ticket items, including research and
development, which are less than a quarter of the department’s total budget.
Fourth, especially in light of what will be large spending cuts, the future
of the defense industrial base is still cast in antique terms. Industrial is
anachronistic, smacking of the late 19th and 20th centuries, when ships,
tanks and aircraft were built in larger numbers. A 21st-century requirement
is the need for a strong intellectual base, in which intellectual property
manifested in information technologies and super smart sensors and weapons
is the coin of the realm, not simply bending iron as in the past.
Fifth, leading us to the desperate side of the equation is the failure to
recognize that everything depends on people. John Paul Jones rightly
observed that men were more important than guns in the rating of a ship.
Instead of people as the central foundation for national security, the
administration continues to rely on obsolete models of the past in which
weapons, or technological breakthroughs, along with clarion calls for
reform, take higher priority.
One anecdotal example: The National Defense University, the nation’s senior
military educational institution, will see its presidency downgraded from a
three-star appointment and many argue that four stars were appropriate
given the importance of education – to two stars as part of flag officer
reductions. This is not even a foot note in the budget. Yet it underscores
how desperate is overtaking serious.
Driven by fiscal reality, large defense cuts are inevitable. The only
questions are how much and when. As defense shrinks, other important assets
across the broader national security spectrum will also be affected,
probably more so.
More spending is not the answer. Given no existential threat on the horizon
unless we are incredibly incompetent over China, defense can and should be
cut back substantially with two provisions. First, it must be done
intelligently, a dicey proposition given a government that is dysfunctional
at best and in reality broken. Second, people must be treated not only
fairly, but recognized as the most critical resource we have and be treated
accordingly. Plans in the future must recognize and act on this proposition
if the state of our security is to remain only serious and not desperate.
By Harlan Ullman , chairman of the Killowen Group
